March 07, 2011

Emanuel transition members part of his political, professional networking

Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s political career and personal fortune were helped by his mastery of the art of networking, and many of those named Monday to his transition committees have intersected at critical points during his ascent.

Among the 17 people named to the transition’s committee on government reinvention and budget was Bridget Reidy, a top executive at Chicago-based Exelon Corp. Reidy, a former deputy chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley, served as the chief operating officer for the Chicago Housing Authority when Emanuel served on that agency’s board.

At the CHA, Reidy was one of the chief architects of the Plan for Transformation that overhauled the face of public housing. Emanuel frequently mentioned it as one of his resume highlights while campaigning.

Reidy later moved to Exelon, where she played a key role in melding operations of two regional utilities that combined to form the power generating giant, a merger brokered by Emanuel as an investment banker in 2000.

The 14-member education committee includes Diana Rauner, president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund which promotes the importance of early childhood education. Rauner is married to venture capitalist Bruce Rauner, head of a firm that once collaborated with Emanuel during his investment banking days on the nearly $500 million sale of a home alarm business.

Also on the education panel is Don Feinstein, executive director of the Academy for Urban School Leadership, which operates a teacher training academy on the Northwest Side for which Emanuel once helped obtain a $2 million state grant.

Feinstein testified about the grant at Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial and could be called again at the former Illinois governor’s retrial which begins next month. Feinstein told jurors about unorthodox roadblocks Blagojevich appeared to throw up in 2006 to slow delivery of the money to the school, located in what was then Emanuel’s congressional district.

Other witnesses testified that Blagojevich sought to block delivery of the money until Emanuel leaned on his brother, a prominent Hollywood talent agent, to raise campaign cash for the then-governor from wealthy people in show business. No fundraiser was held and the money eventually was paid.

Timothy Knowles, director of the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, helped Emanuel create his education platform as a candidate. His name was mentioned in education circles as a potential leader of Chicago Public Schools. While Knowles said he was not interested in running CPS, he did agree to serve on the transition team.

The education committee is rounded out with teachers, principals, and community activists, including Zipporah Hightower, the principal of the Bethune School of Excellence, who was a co-chair of Emanuel’s mayoral campaign.

Emanuel’s appointees include experts and advocates for some controversial points of view on critical issues facing his administrations. Several committee members are advocates for teacher performance pay and charter schools.

An appointee to the government panel is Cordelia “Dea” Meyer, executive vice president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, the business group that has been leading a public campaign to rein in pension benefits of government workers.

Meyer was a longtime member of the Illinois Board of High Education, whose term overlapped with that of former executive director Judy Erwin.

Erwin resigned as a co-chair of Emanuel’s transition within hours of her appointment being made public after the Tribune raised questions about a state ethics probe into her tenure at the agency.

Other members of his reinvention committee have deep roots in a city government that the mayor-elect says he wants to reinvent.

Among the appointees is Judy Rice, a former city treasurer under Daley who also served the outgoing mayor as commissioner of both the water and transportation departments.

Jorge Perez, recently appointed executive director of the Hispanic American Construction Industry Association, previously was a top official at the CTA as well as a deputy commissioner in the city Department of Aviation.

Ty Tabing, now executive director of the Chicago Loop Alliance, once managed Loop development projects for the city planning & development department. Kirk Bishop, who works for a growth management firm, directed Chicago’s zoning ordinance update.

Also named to the panel were former Daley staffers Julia Harris and Alexandra Holt, who has been a top deputy in Daley’s budget office and environment department. Both are now in private industry, with Harris specializing in privatization strategies at a Loop firm that consults government bodies on coping with financial problems and Holt counseling clients on infrastructure privatization at a Loop law firm.

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

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Clout has a special meaning in Chicago, where it can be a noun, a verb or an adjective. This exercise of political influence in a uniquely Chicago style was chronicled in the Tribune cartoon "Clout Street" in the early 1980s. Clout Street, the blog, offers an inside look at the politics practiced from Chicago's City Hall to the Statehouse in Springfield, through the eyes of the Tribune's political and government reporters.